Steve Jobs Action Figure cancelled due to legal threats

In early January we were a little disgusted to hear that a model manufacturer planned to launch a Steve Jobs action figure, we thought this was in a way exploiting his death and people agreed with us, now we are hearing that production and sale of the Steve Jobs figurine have ceased.

Below we have added an extract of a statement from In Icon’s Tandy Cheung, as you can see he still believes that legally there is nothing wrong with the figure, but suggests that morally the timing of the launch was questionable, here’s what he said:

“Though we still believe that we have not overstepped any legal boundaries, we have decided to completely stop the offer, production and sale of the Steve Jobs figurine out of our heartfelt sensitivity to the feelings of the Jobs family.”

We think that if this product launched prior to Steve Jobs passing away, or perhaps In Icon decided that a percentage of the proceeds would go to pancreatic cancer charities the figurine would have been acceptable, instead the fact that it was launched shortly after his death seemed coincidental and many though In Icons were wrongly exploiting Jobs’s death.

When In Icons were selling the 12-inch ultra-realistic figurine it sold for $99.99, the announcement has resulted in some people putting the figure on eBay for ridiculous amounts – the highest we have seen is $2,500 and we’re not fans of this either so we won’t be linking you to the listing – why do people stoop so low?

Before we leave you we thought we would ask you opinion on the matter, would you pay $100 for the figure if Jobs’ family OK’d it and a percentage of the proceeds went to charity?